Elizabeth’s Bridal Shower

So the reason I have neglected my beloved blog this past week is because I’ve been super busy preparing for Elizabeth’s bridal shower.  This was the first shower I had ever hosted, and I wanted it to be perfect!  I spent 3 days making and decorating sugar cookies, cleaning, and baking cakes and cake pops.  And let me tell you, cleaning up after 2 Saint Bernards and 3 cats is no easy task.  The cats are actually pretty easy to clean up after.  They just leave cat hair that can easily be wiped or vacuumed up.  The dogs, however, manage to fling their drool all over the house, including the walls, ceiling, floor, couch, doors, windows, counter, bed…..I think you get the point.  But let me tell you, Mr. Clean Magic Erasers are AMAZING!!!  I don’t know how they do it, but they get even the toughest drool spots clean.  I think I’m going to need to buy them in bulk.

I set up the tables and chairs in our living room, which fortunately, after almost a year of living here, we still haven’t put any furniture in.  So set up was easy since I didn’t have to move any furniture out to make room for the tables.

We had exactly enough chairs for everyone, which was incredible since I only got a few RSVPs.  Having enough places for people to sit was one of my main stresses before the shower.

Here’s the food table.  Fortunately the other 2 bridesmaids were wonderful enough to bring the food dishes, and I only had to worry about the dessert.  That took so much stress off me.  So thank you Jen and Krista!

Elizabeth and I went to Kroger about an hour before the shower was supposed to start and bought some flowers to put on the tables.  And instead of buying perfectly fresh roses for $20, I found some that were a couple days old on sale for $4.99 and $7.99.  I also bought some candles and put them in gift bags for each lady to take home with them.

Here everyone is hanging out in the kitchen before we ate lunch.

Elizabeth sneaking a cookie before lunch. 🙂

Here’s the view from our cat walk above the living room.

Wedding themed sugar cookies that I made.

The dessert section!  Strawberry cake, cake pops, and sugar cookies.

Here’s what the inside of the cake looked like.  I added a white cake layer in between the 2 strawberry layers just to make things interesting.

Such a pretty lady.  She’s going to make a beautiful bride!

We started by eating the lovely lunch that Jen and Krista (seated) provided.

Elizabeth is telling a story, that I can’t remember…..

But I remember that it was funny, because Jenni and Cheryl are laughing.

Then we played a game where I asked questions about Elizabeth and Rustin and whoever got the most answers right got a prize.

Then we played a game where each team wrapped a girl (Elizabeth and Rustin’s little sister, Sam) in toilet paper.  And whoever looked the most like a bride won a prize.

It was a close one, but Sam ended up winning.

Elizabeth enjoyed the cake pops. 🙂

Present time!!!

This bag had a TON of tissue paper in it, so luckily when she tossed it in the air I had my camera pointed right at her and captured the moment. 🙂

This was a hilarious moment!  This gift was from Lindsey, who apparently didn’t have many greeting cards at home….

So she gave Elizabeth a “thank you” card…..

…and wrote “Thank you for getting married and inviting me to your shower.”  She said the only other card she had was a sympathy card.  We were cracking up so much we needed lotion.  Bahaha!!!  I know, I should have been a comedian.

She loved her new Keurig coffee maker!  It’s great!  I have one!

Cheryl, our Sunday School teacher’s wife and the leader of our weekly Bible study gave a wonderful devotional on how to be a godly wife.

Afterward, she gave Elizabeth this beautiful painting she did titled “The Art of Marriage” listing all her talking points from the devotional.  What a wonderful gift!

Bride and maid of honor!

We had pins with our titles on them.  When she hosts my bridal shower in a couple months, we’ll switch pins.  🙂

Here’s the whole gang!  We had a great time, and now I can go back to relaxing!

Got Weddings on the Brain

It’s wedding season, and I’m getting married in 3 months!  I’m also hosting a bridal shower for my best friend Elizabeth next weekend, which has me completely stressed out!  Last night i had a dream nightmare that I had somehow forgotten about the bridal shower and everyone started showing up to my house and I had nothing prepared, and my house was a mess because of our many animals.  Talk about a stressful dream!  I woke up abruptly in the middle of it and then couldn’t go back to sleep because I was thinking about everything I had to do for the shower.

So, to de-stress myself, I browsed through the wedding section on Etsy, and boy oh boy did I find some gems!  Literally!

Like this gorgeous crystal bridal bouquet wrap.  I wonder if there’s an easy way to make this myself?  The price tag on this thing is a whopping $339!  That’s more than my dress cost.  No thank you!

I also found this beautiful hair comb.  I definitely want something like this.  I originally though I wanted a tiara, but I’ll just have to see which looks better with my hair style.

And what about these cuties!?  The only problem with these hangers is that they’ll only be used 1 day, and I want to get my bridesmaids something they can use all the time.  I mean, I guess they can use them after the wedding, but they’ll only be cute for one day, and then they’ll just get mixed up with all the other hangers in their closets.  It’s a cute idea though!

I’m still on the hunt for the perfect earrings and necklace.  I want something pretty and simple…..

…like this.  Wow, I just noticed that there’s a little piece of hair or lint on that earring.  Haha!  I wonder if the Etsy shop owner knows that.  That’s kinda grody.  But nevertheless, this is kinda the style I want as far as earrings go (minus the hair).

I still need to take my dress to a seamstress to have a bustle put in, but other than that, my dress fits perfectly!  What a relief!!  Now back to stressing over Elizabeth’s shower.

Wedding Mania

Yesterday marked the 4 month countdown of our wedding.  I can’t believe how fast the time is going by!  (I apologize to all the English teachers of the world for the preposition at the end of the sentence).  Yesterday, Steve and I met with our wedding venue Historic Cedarwood in Nashville to finalize all the details of the ceremony and reception.  We chose flowers, food, decorations, table linens, invitations, and music (I use the term “we” here very loosely.  Steve was basically there for moral support.  Although he did pick out our table cloths, some of the food, and the monogram for our napkins.  Great job, love!)  It’s so great to have a venue that takes care of everything except the photographer and minister!  Makes my life so much easier not to have to run around town to several different places to get everything I need done.

We’re getting married at a beautiful antebellum house on several acres that was built in 1835.  Luckily they have several rain options in the small chance that it rains on our wedding day.

Here is the front of the house.  The reception will be under the covered patio on the left.

The ceremony site is right behind the patio.

I don’t think I could have pictured a more beautiful setting.  Planning everything yesterday just made it all so real!  I can’t believe I’m going to marry my best friend in 4 months!

We also booked our honeymoon cruise yesterday!!!  We almost didn’t get the cruise we wanted.  Princess cruise lines has a limited number of cruises to the Caribbean during the summer, and the only one that happened to be close to our wedding was July 28 leaving from New York.  That was perfectly fine by me since I had never been to New York!  Steve and I would drive up a few days early and stop along the way to see the sights.

Yesterday, when I went to book the cruise, much to my dismay it said “No cabins available” for our July 28th cruise!  Oh no!!!  The next Caribbean cruise wasn’t until Sept 29th, and I didn’t want to wait over 2 months after our wedding to finally go on our honeymoon.

Luckily, both Steve’s brother and sister in law work for Princess.  They were able to open up a reservation just for us on the ship we wanted.  Phew!  What a close call!  I was so grateful!

Now we just have to wait 4 more months until we are man and wife!  It can’t come fast enough…..well,  as long as I can lose these last 10 pounds, that is. 🙂